Nothing could be more important for the interests of science, than this gracious manifestation of His Majesty's concern for its advancement. It was hailed by all who were made acquainted with it, as the commencement of a new era, and the energies which it might have awakened were immense. The unfettered nature of the gift excited admiration, whilst the confidence reposed in the Council was calculated to have insured the wavering faith of any less-gifted body. Even those who, either from knowing the MANAGEMENT of the Society, or from other grounds, doubted the policy of establishing medals, saw much to admire in the tone and spirit in which they were offered.
The Council immediately came to the resolution of gratefully accepting them: and it appears that the President communicated that resolution, on the 26th, to Mr. Peel, in a letter, which is found on the minutes of the Council-book of the 26th of January.
At the same Council, the rules for the award of the Royal medals were decided upon; they were as follow:—
26th January, 1826.
RESOLVED,
That it is the opinion of the Council, that the medals be awarded for the most important discoveries or series of investigations, completed and made known to the Royal Society in the year preceding the day of their award.
That it is the opinion of the Council, that the presentation of the medals should not be limited to British subjects. And they propose, if it should be His Majesty's pleasure, that his effigy should form the obverse of the medal.
That two medals from the same die should be struck upon each foundation; one in gold, one in silver.
If these rules are not the wisest which might have been formed, yet they are tolerably explicit; and it might have been imagined that even a councillor of the Royal Society, prepared for office by the education of a pleader, could not have mystified his brethren so completely, as to have made them doubt on the point of time. The rules fixed precisely, that the discoveries or experiments rewarded, must be completed and made known to the Royal Society, within the YEAR PRECEDING THE DAY of the award.
Perhaps it might have been a proper mark of respect to this communication, to have convened a special general meeting of the Society, to have made known to the whole body the munificent endowment of their Patron: and when his approbation of the laws which were to govern the distribution of these medals had been intimated to the Council, such a course would have been in complete accordance with the wish expressed in Mr. Peel's letter, "TO EXCITE COMPETITION AMONGST MEN OF SCIENCE" by making them generally known.